Monday, January 26, 2009

If it wasn't for the ads, I would probably play music throughout my Super Bowl viewing party. It's not because the sounds of the game aren't appealing, but rather the fact that announcers and on-air personalities during the SB are just hype peddling, life changing story repeating, vessels of hot air. It's really not their fault either.

Having two weeks to plan for one game, and the job of filling a nine hour pregame show and live telecast, just gives a network all the more opportunity to shove stories down your throat. Last year it was the undefeated season, the year before that was "Can Peyton Win The Big One"/The first black coaches in the Super Bowl, and the year before that was Bettis winning in his hometown. Did you know that Jerome Bettis was from Detroit?

Slate writer, Charles P. Pierce, has figured out what your annoying plot lines for this year's Super Bowl are. Here's a little hint....you should probably just suck it up and root for the Steelers, because if the Cards go up, you'll be getting a lot of Kurt Warner AFL/God/Reinvented his career talk....

We're going to hear about how they magically transformed themselves at the end of the season. We're going to hear about the remarkable comeback of Kurt Warner. We're going to hear about how marvelous it is for the National Football League that a Super Bowl championship is within the grasp of a team so thickly dripping with obvious mediocrity that it's a wonder Charlie Sheen isn't playing left guard. We are going to hear all of this because the NFL and its broadcast partners operate on the very simple premise that everybody who reports—or follows—their sport on television is a paste-eating moron....

Bear in mind over the next week that this game will be cited as the "pivotal" moment in the Cardinals' miracle run to the Super Bowl. Ken Whisenhunt—who sat most of his offensive weapons in that game—and his staff will be the subject of gooey encomiums for cracking the whip after the loss to New England. There will be loose talk about professionalism, and about how pride was appealed to at a critical moment. And since snow is a long shot in Tampa, they might even win the game, and then there will be more of it. And it will all be nonsense. Not even Tim Tebow could save this team's soul.

Very well said. The worst part about the Super Bowl is that very thing. It's not that NBC, or any other network for that matter, shouldn't be talking about those things, it's just that you will already have heard all of those stories. You heard them all year, and by the time we get through Media week, and into the second half....you'll have heard them about forty times. We should all pray that the game stays close for a few quarters. Because if it's a blowout, that forty number could turn into eighty real quick.

Actually, I take that back. As long as their aren't forty shots of Brenda Warner in the stands, I'll take whatever ad nauseum stories you want to give me, NBC.

10 (as in the number of blabberheads Sunday on NBC) plus 6 1/2 (the length in hours of the pregame show) plus 1 (the appearance of John Elway to toss the coin) gives me an idea.Turn on the set at 4:27 Mountain time.